Which Gaming Platform Had the Most Exclusives in 2012?

On a fanciful whim, TechnoBuffalo’s Senior Gaming Editor Joey Davidson asked me, “Would you like to stare at a spreadsheet for 8 hours?”

Well of course I said yes. But no, I wasn’t playing Disgaea. Instead, I was data-mining Wikipedia’s various lists of games by platform to see which platforms had the most exclusive games.

As a caveat, I’ll note that these lists were compiled by humans, and then read by me, also a human, so there may be minor numerical errors, but the overall picture is accurate. There’s also probably more information a better miner of data could’ve pulled out of these spreadsheets, but here are our graphs and the conclusions we’ve reached. Also, due to the nature of PC gaming, there wasn’t one single place to get a complete list of games, so the closest we could find was the list of games released to Steam in 2012. This doesn’t account for a few EA games (none of which were PC-exclusive) or Blizzard’s games, Diablo III and Mists of Pandaria (along with, very likely, a few other big ones I’ve forgotten).
(Nintendo DS, PC, PS Vita, PS3, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360)

The PS3 didn't do much better either. I still think that list is a little off though. Are they just counting titles that were release in all areas and not counting titles released only in Japan or they count remakes; Ninja Garden Plus?

The PC is clearly the winner in this and the Vita (The one that has no games) came in second with almost 40 exclusive titles for the year.

Its pretty much a cert PS3 and 360 will be replaced by new consoles next year. Neither have had as many retail exclusives or first party published games this year as any of the peak years prior to this.

This happens the year before every new console generation, it becomes apparent that the manufacturers are preparing new games for their new consoles.

The lack of 360 titles makes it the most obvious, Microsoft are almost certainly concentrating on their next machine now....

I agree. This gen has had 2 massive exclusives from Sony and Microsoft. GT and Halo. The rest sold around about the same but people need to wake up and see since the PSX days its always been about 3rd party games. Look at the best selling games on the PSX and PS2 and you will find they are 3rd party games but people classed them as exclusives because they were not on the N64 ect but they were still crated by a 3rd party.

@NathanExplosion Sorry that is what I was trying to say. there was a lot of Exclusive 3rd party games in the PSX and PS2 days as the PSX and PS2 were the best selling consoles of there gen where this gen its been very close between the XBOX and PS3 and because of this there was more money to be made by 3rd party's if they have the game on both consoles and I see the next Xbox, PS3 and WiiU having more 3rd party games across all 3 than this gen.

Including multiplats such as Playstation Allstars, Closure, Okami HD, Motorstorm RC and Sound Shapes yet excluding games like Minecraft, Mark of the Ninja, Alan Wake's American Nightmare and The Witcher 2?

I cant fully agree with you and I do hate how loose some people are with the term "multiplatform", but it's not really the same in this case.

The games you listed for Xbox are true multiplatform titles that can be played on many platforms, whereas the Sony titles you listed are of the Playstation brand and can be played nowhere else. You don't need a 360 or Windows to play the Witcher 2 because it's also on Mac...same as Mincraft, except it's also on IOS/Android.

So while they're not Playstation 3 exclusives, they are in fact, Playstation exclusives. So just like DCU online, you can't really list the Witcher 2 as Xbox exclusive or exclusive to any brand.

So crossplay between the PS3 and the Vita is now being held against Sony?! For real? You're saying a game with Playstation in the title -Playstation AllStars- isn't an exclusive? Comparing it to 3rd party games like Mark of the Ninja which you can get on a PC...is just ridiculous.

Okami HD is only available on PS3 btw. The 2012 HD release isn't available for 360, PC or any handhelds. Why shouldn't it count?

Wrong! It's not a fact, PC had the most exclusive games this year, it was pretty obvious actually PC always has had the most exclusives each year most of the time. What made me smile is the FACT that you didn't even read the article. Also most of the Xbox360 exclusives this year were kinect shovelware.

psn/xbla should not count...disc based should...and also the vita is a sony product....so xbox didnt have near as many as sony...maybe if they stop with the same games year after year....yeah i love my ps3 i also have xbox but dont play with it much...slaton22A7X

I disagree. We...or I...hammer the 360 every year when nothing pops up but a few exceptional downloadable games and Sony pretty much did a Microsoft this year, except they did do what I suggested like delaying a AAA game for this year.

Now next year is a different story. 2 new big budget IPs in a single, as well as the staples like GoW and Sly??? Wow. They've already won next year, but this year was abysmal.

PC isn't bigger than console because of Facebook games, but because most gamers outside America are PC gamers. Console may dominate the United States but PC dominates in European Union, Asia and many third world countries in Africa and South America. I have played MMOs with over 250 million players and the grand total PS2 console sales don't even come CLOSE to those numbers, and these are just games. Even that one crappy MMO for miserable battered housewives (aka WoW) at it's peak of less than 20 million players was just a drop in the ocean.

Since these games appear on both PS3 and PSVita, they're technically not exclusive to one system, yet it wouldn't feel fair to not count them, since Sony make both systems, whilst Microsoft only have one system.

Which console had more exclusives that people cared about, and sold well?

Nintendo made the most money on software and hardware. I would have to say that Microsoft won the day though, at least everywhere other than Japan. Sony is making great strides in acquiring more developers, so they may win next gen.